Sunday, November 4, 2007

KALI - India's new weapon

The Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (Barc)'s powerful electron accelerating machine named''Kali-5000`` which, its scientists say, can potentially be used as a beamweapon.

Bursts of microwaves packed with gigawatts of power (one gigawatt is 1000million watts) produced by this machine, when aimed at enemy missiles andaircraft, will cripple their electronics systems and computer chips andbring them down.

According to scientists, ''soft killing`` by high power microwaves hasadvantages over the so called laser weapon which destroys by drillingholes through metal.

According to Barc scientists, the Kali machine has for the first timeprovided India a way to ''harden`` the electronic systems used insatellites and missiles against the deadly electromagnetic impulses (Emi)generated by nuclear weapons.

The Emi wrecks havoc by creating intense electric field of severalthousand volts per centimeter. The electronic components currently used inmissiles can withstand fields of Just 300 volts per centimeter.

While the Kali systems built so far are single shot pulse power systems(they produce one burst of microwaves and the next burst comes muchlater), Kali-5000 is a rapid fire device, and hence its potential as abeam weapon.

According to Barc-published reports, the machine will shoot severalthousand bursts of microwaves, each burst lasting for just 60 billionthsof a second and packed with a power of about four gigawatts.

The high power microwave pulses travel in a straight line and do notdissipate their energy if the frequency falls between three and tengigahertz.

According to Barc scientists, a microwave power of 150 megawatts hasalready been demonstrated in earlier versions of Kali.